Week Starts Poorly for Crude Oil

Forecasters were bullish on crude oil at the start of the week, but so far, the commodity has given few reasons for bulls to be happy. Prices for the West Texas Intermediate grade slumped more than 1% on Monday. Brent crude declined as well, albeit not nearly as much.

One of the reasons for traders to avoid crude was uncertainty about the outcome of the meeting of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia in Vienna on November 30. While there were reports that Russia has basically accepted an extension of oil production cuts, there are still doubts that the country is really going to accept the terms offered by the OPEC.

Another negative factor for the commodity was the news about reopening of TransCanada’s Keystone Pipeline. The pipeline, which transfers oil from Canada to refineries in the United States, was closed due to a leak, and some reports predicted that it will take about two more weeks to fix the problem. Yet the company said that it plans to restart the pipeline as soon as November 28, though with reduced pressure. It is still unclear when the pipeline will return to full capacity.

January futures for delivery of WTI crude oil sank as much as 1.8% to $57.89 per barrel as of 21:52 GMT on NYMEX today. Brent crude slipped 0.14% to $63.77 per barrel on ICE.

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